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Black Liberation

Judge Denies Motion To Dismiss In Free Speech Case

On August 15, 2024, U.S. Federal District Court Judge William Jung issued his ruling denying the Motion to Dismiss filed by attorneys for the “Uhuru 3” - Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel - who argued that the case violates the First Amendment. Jung’s decision came over one year after the Motion was filed, ten months after oral arguments on the Motion were presented and six months after Magistrate Judge Anthony Porcelli recommended to the district judge that he deny the Motion. On August 14, 2024, the same Judge denied the prosecutors’ “motion in limine”, filed August 1, 2024, to restrict the Uhuru 3 attorneys from arguing to the jury that their defendant’s speech is protected by the First Amendment, stating that “whether the conduct is shielded by the First Amendment is a legal issue to be decided by the Court, and arguments concerning such legal issues will only confuse the jury.”

Defeat The Fascist War On African People In The US And Abroad

“Defeat the War on African People in the US and Abroad” has been the rallying cry for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) since the formation’s inception in 2017. As we rolled out and expanded the campaign, we were frequently met with the same question in the teach-ins, webinars, panel discussions, and outreach efforts we conducted among colonized and oppressed Africans across this country and even the world: “What war on Africans?” We were similarly asked as a follow-up, “Who is waging war on us?” Those are excellent questions, but before we get to those questions, let us deal clearly with the relationship of the working class and poor Africans, and others in the U.S. to the state.

Juneteenth: Embracing The Power Of Awareness And Repair

When President Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021, I initially saw it as a symbolic gesture, unable to replace the concrete legislation needed to address the challenges faced by the Black community in America. However, as time passed and I had conversations with my white friends who had no idea about its historical origins, I started realizing the true importance of Juneteenth. It is not just another holiday, but a valuable lesson for America—a chance to confront its past and make amends for ongoing injustices. Juneteenth is a day that marks the liberation of enslaved African Americans in Texas. Can you believe it took more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation for them to learn they were finally free?

Juneteenth: Black Liberation Through Revolutionary Struggle

On June 19, 1865 Major General Gordon Granger and 1,800 Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, nearly two months after General Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy surrendered in the decisive battle of Appomattox, to announce that slavery finally ended with the issuing of General Order Number 3. This order stated: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” This declaration claimed that there would be “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.”

Reflections On The Legacy And Modern-Day Impact Of Malcolm X

With the recent celebrations of the 99th birthday of Malcolm X, the Ujima People’s Progress Party feels it is a good time to reflect on his legacy and modern-day impact. Granted that this cannot be done complete justice in one column. Our objective here is to simply highlight a few things in his legacy that we feel contribute to his ideological lineage which in no small measure led to the forming of our party. First and foremost, Malcolm X was a Pan Africanist and as such the unification of all people of African descent was of the utmost urgency. The primary urgent objective was then and is today to recapture the motherland home of Africa and secure her resources both economic and cultural first for the benefit of African people and then the rest of the world in need.

Rise Of Militarized Policing In Response To Black Dissent

Since the mid-1960s, the militarization of U.S. police, counter-insurgency, and the surveillance capacity of the civilian law enforcement establishment, then relatively new, has today reached extraordinary levels of sophistication and questionable degrees of constitutionality. The accelerated militarization of America’s police agencies began exponentially to explode during the later years of the Vietnam War, as widespread student anti-war protests of the late sixties reached their zenith. During the same period, the Civil Rights mass movement of Black people for social and political equality in the South began to be co-opted with symbolic government electoral concessions like the Voting Rights Act of 1964. 

Tales From The Pages Of COINTELPRO

“Circulate, to educate, to liberate!” This was the constant intonation of Sam Napier, circulation manager of The Black Panther newspaper. As one Panther leader noted, Sam was “the main reason” why shortly after it began, the paper had “a 200,000 plus copies per week distribution.”2 Napier was a beloved member of the party, which is why many were taken by surprise when his body was found in March of 1971, tied to a chair, showing bullet wounds and signs of torture. After they left, perhaps while he was still alive, his killers set the building on fire. Sam Napier was one of the victims of a concentrated effort to destroy the Black Panthers by the U.S. government, as part and parcel of an effort to destroy the entire Black liberation movement and any other radicals who dared raise their voices against the U.S. ruling class and their imperial policies.

Impact Of The Haitian Revolution On Resistance History

This year represents the 98th anniversary of the launching of “Negro History Week” in 1926, later named Black History Month in 1976, after the federal government issued a proclamation in recognition of the contributions of African American people under the administration of President Gerald R. Ford. The commemoration was founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a pioneering scholar and public intellectual who founded the Journal of Negro History in 1915 and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History the following year, 1916. Woodson’s origins within the African American working class is a demonstration of the determination to seek formal education in the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the South and other regions of the United States.

Sekou Odinga Has Joined The Ancestors

Brother, comrade, Father, New African, Sekou Odinga took his last breath in this world on January 12, 2024, ending a life of service and sacrifice not matched by many. Brother Sekou loved our people and he loved all of the oppressed and gladly dedicated his life to the liberation of the colonized, oppressed people of the world because that is indeed what the “Black Liberation Movement” embodied. Brother Sekou understood, like all of the warriors of our people from the time we plotted at the bottom of slave ships, in the cotton fields, in Massa’s house, in the urban ghettos and rural plantations, that authentic liberation would only materialize when we physically defeated the original colonial “motherfuckers,” slavers, genocidal, imperialist criminals that held us and the world in their grip.

Palestinian-Black Solidarity Teach-In

Minneapolis, MN – 150 people gathered at Redeemer Lutheran Church in North Minneapolis on January 4 to listen to an in-depth discussion about the link of the Black liberation struggle and the struggle for liberation in Palestine. Jae Yates, an organizer with Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar (TCC4J) and Sabry Wazwaz, a Palestinian organizer, spoke about the connections between U.S. police violence and the violence the Israeli occupying forces are inflicting on the Palestinian people. Yates gave the history of Palestine and how groups like the Black Panthers and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee were supporters of Palestine in the 1960s and 70s.

Black Ties To Palestinian Liberation

As a worldwide series of protests in solidarity with Palestine erupt in multiple cities across the globe, the clear distinction between the will of the people and that of militarized fascist states couldn't be more clear. It is pivotal during this time for the Black community to recognize the origins of our oppression and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The genocidal strategies of settler colonial states are not unfamiliar to Black communities, and the source of our oppression is coming from the same systems and institutions. Afro Palestinians are our siblings in the Black diaspora who have consistently been at the forefront of the occupation.

Fighting Colonial Oppression, Genocide From The United States To Palestine

On November 4, people from across the country will gather in Washington, DC for the 15th Annual March to the White House organized by the Black is Back Coalition. Clearing the FOG speaks with Chairman Omali Yeshitela about the theme of this year's march, building an anti-colonial free speech movement in solidarity with peoples who struggle around the world. Yeshitela is one of the Uhuru 3, who are facing 15 years in jail for their activism. Yeshitela speaks about the historic ties between the black and Palestinian liberation movements. Then, Marjorie Cohn, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, joins the program to speak about a new legal brief on the complicity of the United States with Israel in its commission of genocide and other war crimes.

November 4: All Out For Black People’s March On The White House

On November 4, freedom-loving people from cities throughout the U.S. will march on the White House, having traveled by plane, train, bus and caravan to make their voices heard at the 15th Annual Black People's March on the White House. In light of the rapidly escalating genocidal war being waged by Israel on the Palestinian people, this year’s Black People’s March on the White House will declare that, “the African, Indigenous, Mexican, Filipino, Cuban, Venezuelan and other oppressed peoples of the world stand together with Palestine in a united front against colonialism, our common enemy.

What Liberation Requires From Us

In December 2022, I took some time off to discern the next steps in my career and found myself at the Door of No Return on Goree Island in Dakar, Senegal. This island was one of the many places in West Africa where enslaved Africans were held in barracoons before being shipped to the Americas. With ancestry from seven West African countries, a few of my Senegalese ancestors likely walked through these doors. As I stood at the doorway staring out to the vast blue-green ocean, my heart was heavy as I pondered the tragedy of millions of Africans being kidnapped, torn from families and homelands, and packed on ships to spend the rest of their lives enslaved. But oddly enough, I also felt triumphant.

Haiti As Empire’s Laboratory

In December 2019, President Donald Trump signed into law H.R.2116, also known as the Global Fragility Act (GFA). Although this act was developed by the conservative United States Institute of Peace, it was introduced to Congress by Democratic Representative Eliot L. Engel, then chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and cosponsored by a bipartisan group of representatives, including, significantly, Democrat Karen Bass. The GFA presents new strategies for deploying U.S. hard and soft power in a changing world. It focuses U.S. foreign policy on the idea that there are so-called “fragile states,” countries prone to instability, extremism, conflict, and extreme poverty, which are presumably threats to U.S. security.
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